A Life in Men: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

emerged from a nest of testosterone and hash chips. He pads barefoot down the stairs to the toilet, which sits between the first and second stories of the house, and blithely shuts the door behind him.
    Just fucking great.
Now even if Mary does retrieve her Flutter, she’ll have to wait to use it. Sandor can soak in a tub for hours, using all the hot water they’ll have that day. But at least the common room is empty now. Mary dashes back to its kitchenette, searching for something carbonated. Brits love carbonation; even their lemonade is bubbly, and she usually stocks the minifridge with it. Carbonation will start loosening her mucus, a preliminary to her eventual PT. She flings back the fridge door. Bare. Nothing but the empty box of milk she and Joshua used on their cereal and some cases of film Yank can’t afford to get developed.
    Shit, shit.
She kicks the minifridge, hurting her toes. Nothing lasts a minute in this place. Tears of frustration prickle in her eyes, irrational because Joshua will not let her contribute one penny toward rent—she does not even buy groceries, other than the one time she made eggplant parmesan for Sandor’s birthday—so how could she possibly explain to these men that their casually consuming her lemonade feels like grand theft? Desperation mounting, she races downstairs to the real kitchen. Owing to some tic of British architects, it, like the kitchen in her old B & B, is on the lower level. This room technically belongs to everyone in the house, but protocol has established that she, Yank, Joshua, and Sandor use the common room kitchenette exclusively. As quietly as possible, she pries open the door of the refrigerator and peers inside.
    Predictably, it is full of beer. Although beer is indeed carbonated, she detests it. Never mind: Mary pulls out a can of Foster’s and pops the tab, chugging. She remembers when one beer used to rush to her head like a row of tequila shots, but these days she is a bartender whose customers buy her drinks as “tips”; these days she lives in a house over which a perpetual hash fog dwells; these days she makes it her business to be numb as much as possible.
    Eventually she hears Sandor’s combat-booted feet stampeding down the stairs. “Parting is such sweet sorrow!” he singsongs loudly from the front door. This is their morning routine: He always bids her an elaborate farewell, ignoring Yank as he departs. She is supposed to continue the game by rushing to the front door and kissing his cheek, like a 1950s housewife. Today, though, she cannot see the front door, and doesn’t answer, lest he peer downstairs to find her downing Foster’s before 9 a.m. Somehow her beer seems less acceptable than the fact that Joshua and Yank were smoking hash an hour ago. Sandor of the deranged fashion aesthetic, a semicloseted homosexual and secret embezzler, is clearly in no position to judge her alcohol intake, but when she hears the front door close she exhales relief.
    If she doesn’t complete her PT before Yank’s ready to leave, she shouldn’t go with him. She should take advantage of her privacy and stay back, do a morning treatment and then another a few hours later to make up for lost time. The pollution of London and the smoke inside Arthog House have collaborated so that her mucus has darkened—a sign of a serious infection, though she doesn’t feel ill. Still, the thought of all those meandering, silent hours alone terrifies her more than being busted with beer by Sandor, even more than going into the room to find Yank awake and perhaps in some state of undress, looking at her like he knows she’s a liar. She marches back to the second floor and opens the door, not timidly but with purpose.
    Yank is dead to the world. The ratty blanket pulled up as protection from the weak London sunlight barely reveals hair already graying—unlike Joshua and Sandor, still in their early to mid twenties, Yank is past thirty-five. Too old to be
here
without it